Who We Are

The Northern California Regional Land Trust (NCRLT) was founded in 1990 and incorporated as a nonprofit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service to assist Northern California landowners and public agencies in the voluntary protection of land and other natural resources. The organization is dedicated to promoting the conservation and preservation of Northern California's open spaces, agricultural lands and natural resources with cooperation between the community, private landowners, public agencies and other nonprofit groups. In promoting cooperation instead of confrontation, NCRLT recognizes that there must be a reasonable balance between the need for timber, agriculture and development, while maintaining a high quality of life for generations to come.

Background

NCRLT was founded in 1990 under the former name of “Parks and Preserves Foundation” and functioned as a local, grass-roots land trust that promoted cooperative preservation and enhancement of scenic, open space and significant habitat resources in Butte County. In early 2000, with the hope of a new decade before them, the Board of Directors decided it was time to expand the interests and capabilities of the organization and enhance existing programs. A long-range strategic planning program was initiated along with a new agricultural land preservation program. Education and outreach programs were enhanced to include aiding and promoting conservation awareness in the region.

With the advent of these new programs and goals it became clear that it was also time to change the name of the land trust to one that more closely reflected these new ideals. The Board of Directors changed the name from the familiar “Parks and Preserve Foundation” to “Northern California Regional Land Trust.” This name change represented the Board’s intention to embrace land conservation in a broader, more regional and multi-faceted context. The advantage of a regional land trust is that it can offer expertise, information and support for all land trust activities beyond its own local scope.

Today, the focus of our activities has expanded to include Butte, Glenn, and Tehama counties from the western slopes of the southern Cascade Range and northern Sierra Nevada Range to the eastern slopes of the Coast Range. Within our approximately 5,000 square mile region, our conservation priorities include irrigated farmland, grasslands and oak savannah used for ranching, “non-working” landscapes, land needing protection for mitigation purposes and forestland at the higher elevations. In response, four well-defined conservation programs have been developed and implemented including the Farmland Program, Rangeland Program, Wildland Program and Mitigation Program.
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